Unfortunately, college came at a cost. There was always a price to pay with my father. Always a blood oath and a promise. Nothing was given out of love.
Always, whatever I had was repaid tenfold.
But I needed this. If I didn’t come to school here, I’d stay in that house for the rest of my life until the day he married me off to some stranger. He’d sell me like a horse and expect me to pump out babies like a good, obedient cartel woman.
American college was my escape. It was my chance at freedom and a normal life, and I craved it so badly my chest hurt thinking about what my existence would be like if I hadn’t come.
Price be damned. Strangers be damned. I could do this.
I had to do this.
There was no other choice.
I raised my chin and limped off to school.
At the end of a long day of classes, I was absolutely exhausted. My leg ached already. The pill should’ve lasted all day, but it wore off after a few hours of sitting on uncomfortable chairs and walking between the buildings to get to my classes. I’d loaded up my Tuesdays and Thursdays so I could work a few days a week and earn my spending money. Nothing was ever free.
I spotted him leaning against the hood of a pitch-black Mercedes wearing a suit like he’d been born in it and a smile on his lips. Black sunglasses covered his eyes, but I knew them all the same—dark blue, like ancient ice. His hair was messy and carelessly styled, and I couldn’t tell if he did it on purpose or if he truly wasn’t interested in what he looked like. He was tall and wiry, muscular but not overly built, and far too handsome for a dangerous man like him.
For a damn gangster.
Carmine waved. I noticed a group of girls standing at a bench nearby, gawking at him. I rolled my eyes. Stupid kids had no clue what this man was. All they saw was a pretty face and an expensive car. They didn’t understand that beneath the suit, he was a starving shark looking for his next meal.
“How was your first day of school, darling?” he asked as I approached.
“Don’t be a dick,” I said, glaring at him. My right hand dropped to my leg and kneaded the muscle at the top of my thigh. I tried not to be too obvious about it, but that was my comfort move. Whenever I got stressed or felt something too intensely, I always touched my wrecked leg.
“I’m not being a dick. I’m just truly interested in how my ward’s day has been.”
“I’m not your ward.” I stopped and glared. “I’m staying with you while I go to school and you’re making sure nobody kills me. That’s the extent of—” I gestured between us. “Whatever this is.”
He grinned and dropped his sunglasses. I felt a little spark between my legs. There was something about his look that always made me shiver with desire, and a wave of resentment flooded through me. Carmine wasn’t supposed to make me feel this way. Nobody was—but especially not a man like him.
I hated mafioso. I hated the cartel men, the bratva assholes, all the stupid gangsters that ruled the world from the shadows and thought they owned everyone and everything. I despised Carmine, and wished I didn’t have this stupid reaction every time he looked in my direction.
It was physical. Purely carnal. Which meant it could be ignored.
I learned a long time ago that I was not my body. Me and my body, we were at odds. It wanted to ache and hurt and complain, but I wanted nothing to do with any of that.
Right now, my body wanted something from Carmine. Something I wasn’t willing to give in to.
It wanted him to pin me against the hood of that ridiculous car and fuck me until I screamed.
No, stupid, stupid body. I tensed my fingers into the flesh of my leg.
“Look, Jules, I get you’re not happy about this arrangement, and let me be perfectly clear—I’m not either.” His eyes stared into mine then drifted down my body. I clenched my jaw. He stared at my lips, and my throat, and my breasts, and back up again. He wasn’t trying to be subtle about it. “But we’re in this situation together, so we might as well make the best of it.”
“Then how about you act like I don’t exist and I act like you don’t. Mutually beneficial ignoring.”
“All right, princess. If that’s what you want.”
“Stop calling me princess.”
“Then stop acting like one.” He pushed off the car. “Now get in. You’ve got to be at the Lowdown in an hour.”
“Working me to the bone,” I said, limping over. He frowned slightly at my uneven gait, but I didn’t care. Lots of people stared and wondered. I got tons of pitying frowns. Poor girl, walks around like she’s eighty years old, but can’t be more than nineteen.